Do we care about SOPA and PIPA?

[Frances_iom]

. Next thing we could even be extradited for having committed a crime (in the US, without being a US citizen, or even living there!)!!

that's close to happening.
Lat is correct that the criminal class marketing pirated DVDs etc need to be curtailed (tho much much more money is made by the spammers + credit card fraudsters) but the media industry has to carry much of the blame in that it refused to pass on the very low price of production and distribution inherent in a digital economy - they tried to charge the same price for a download as for a piece of plastic which had to be distributed + sold etc, also for pop 'music' refusing to allow individual tracks from albums to be sold - they also tried DRM and associated annoyances (eg forcing adverts onto paid for DVDs) thus alienating a whole generation who then turned to 'free' filesharing.
The crazy increase in the length of copyright is another factor - mainly to protect Mickey Mouse etc but severe ramifications on many other knowledge based industries as well as libraries and research.
The whole legal basis of 'Intellectual property' (patents, copyrights + trademarks) needs looking at but not by having legislation written by te industry and pushed by a paid for and corrupt US congress - remember we have similar problems in UK with the lobbying industry - pay your subs to boy David's friends and get private access to him ...

[Budapest]

Another jolly Act that's going through Congress, and hasn't received any publicity at all, is the 'Enemy Expatriation Act', which basically gives the US Government the powers to strip Americans of their citizenship if they are suspected of 'terrorism'. Note that the Enemy Expatriation Act is just like SIPA and PIPA and the NDAA 2012 and all the other similar Acts that have been passed, in that there's no due process. Shadowy and unaccountable figures in government decide that someone is a 'terrorist' and that's it, they can do anything they want to you.

America is now a police state. Look at it in context. There's been one draconian law passed after another, all of which break the American Constitution - American citizens no longer have any rights in law. That's fact, not conspiracy theory. The American homeland is now part of the 'battle zone' and the US military can do anything they want there without any recourse to legal procedure. Once again that's fact, not conspiracy theory. If there had been a 9/11 every year since 2001 you could perhaps understand it; but there hasn't been any major terrorist incidents on US soil since 9/11. This leaves the question, ten years later: why are they passing all these authoritarian laws?

You could also ask yourself why none of these facts are being widely reported in the western media. It's probably one of the biggest news stories in history.

Dave2002 said: Yes, but you might also have to fight a battle. I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-only-internet - Clay Shirkey, and my first thought was - "doesn't really matter if the US doesn't want to associate domain names with IP numbers." We can, after all, compile a list and maybe even publish it on the internet.

Domain names/IP addresses are not like a telephone directory. DNS stands for ‘Domain Name System’. To cut the technical stuff, DNS basically is the address system for web sites (www.google.com or bbc.co.uk for example). DNS is controlled by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) which are both under US jurisdiction, and thus come within the draconian laws that have been and are being passed. The country that controls the Domain Name System is a bit like a global phone company, and can block any web site they want, anywhere in the world.

[Budapest]

Lateralthinking1 said: Conceptually Wikipedia is head and shoulders above anything else ever invented on the internet. Fact.

I totally agree with you, when it comes to an online encyclopedia of basic facts, and Wiki is a very useful resource. My dig at Wiki is that I think it makes people lazy, and thus they don't often get beyond the basic facts. I also say that if you're going to spout off against something you should always get your facts from at least three different sources, respected sources (whatever that means). It also gives much more depth and understanding to what you are saying. Wikipedia blacked-out for a day hopefully forced many people to look for their facts in the more difficult way: proper research.

[handsomefortune]

darn it! your guardian link's not working, budapest.

[Budapest]

handsomefortune, hopefully this link will work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/18/sopa-pipa-consumption-only-internet

[Dave2002]

Dave2002 said: Yes, but you might also have to fight a battle. I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-only-internet - Clay Shirkey, and my first thought was - "doesn't really matter if the US doesn't want to associate domain names with IP numbers." We can, after all, compile a list and maybe even publish it on the internet.

Domain names/IP addresses are not like a telephone directory. DNS stands for ‘Domain Name System’. To cut the technical stuff, DNS basically is the address system for web sites (www.google.com or bbc.co.uk for example). DNS is controlled by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) which are both under US jurisdiction, and thus come within the draconian laws that have been and are being passed. The country that controls the Domain Name System is a bit like a global phone company, and can block any web site they want, anywhere in the world.

Well I believe that there is a similarity with a telephone directory. You can fetch a web page using an IP address and a port number in both IPv4 and IPv6. There is perhaps more to it than that, but my point was that even if we did work out "devious" ways to access information, or to let others access the desired information by making appropriate details and information available, then with some of the proposed legislation, such acts would also be a violation of the proposed laws, and with the US trying to claim de facto worldwide jurisdiction that would not be a great thing to try.

[Budapest]

Dave, the point is that any web address is resolved/addressed via ICAAN, in the United States; that includes everyone worldwide, like dot Britain, dot France, dot Russia, dot China, etc, etc (obviously I'm not using the proper domain extensions to try and make things more clear). Russia and China have both been developing their own root domain systems (which would by-pass ICAAN and the American government). The European Union, in panic at what's going on in America, has also started doing the same.

[Dave2002]

Dave, the point is that any web address is resolved/addressed via ICAAN, in the United States; that includes everyone worldwide, like dot Britain, dot France, dot Russia, dot China, etc, etc (obviously I'm not using the proper domain extensions to try and make things more clear). Russia and China have both been developing their own root domain systems (which would by-pass ICAAN and the American government). The European Union, in panic at what's going on in America, has also started doing the same.

I agrre about that, but my point is that you can get to any page by IP number once you know what that is.

Try http://69.5.3.100/forums for example

As long as the IP number doesn't change you don't need DNS - if you know where to go. It is of course rather inconvenient, which is why we have DNS anyway, and DNS can be subverted.